Lamb Injures Ankle in Pre-Draft Workout

On Friday, we wrote about Andre Drummond, the impending NBA Draft, and the huge risk-reward that goes with taking an unproven but physically gifted player with a top-5 pick. Drummond isn't the only member of the 2011-12 Huskies to be a likely lottery pick later this month.

Jeremy Lamb is generally considered the second-best shooting guard in the draft after Bradley Beal. But depending on the day of the week, the workout, and the team executive doing the talking, Lamb's stock ranges somewhere between meteoric and lukewarm. Last Thursday, Lamb worked out for the Toronto Raptors but an ankle injury early in the workout caused him to cut it short.

“Jeremy Lamb went down early in the process, so you have to make do,” said Raptors Executive VP Ed Stefanski via HoopsWorld.com. “This is a process, we have done work all year long. This is to get to meet the kid, take him out and have a meal with him and see what he is like, but you would rather have the guys healthy as they are going one-on-one against each other.”

Toronto has the No. 8 pick and obviously in need of a shooting guard. While Lamb's injury wasn't serious, he had to cancel a Friday workout with the Trail Blazers. That's the same team who already had issues with Lamb's laid-back on-court demeanor.

Amick has Lamb going to the Suns at No. 13 in his latest mock draft, noting that "Lamb is a smooth and athletic scorer (38-inch vertical) whose 6-11 wingspan gives him serious upside on the defensive end, too."

Meanwhile, Amick predicts that Drummond will go sixth-overall to the Trail Blazers. Of course, he has the same concerns as virtually everybody else trying to evaluate the big man's NBA future.

"Drummond is a mystery man in this draft class," Amick wrote last week. "NBA executives wonder about how imposing he can become given that the 18-year-old center stands 6-11¾ in shoes and has a 7-6¼ wingspan. The immediate data, however, aren't nearly as impressive."

Which is why we can all agree on this: Drummond's nowhere near a finished product. And any team risking a pick on him will have to understand that.

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